I had been gone for a long time. Like about ten years. I wasn’t born in the church but my parents converted when I was about two I think. Growing up in the church, I never really felt anything. I mostly thought it was BS and a waste of time. Religion has never really been my thing. Nevertheless, I went along with it due to fear of losing my family. My dad was pretty abusive and I felt that if I told him how I really felt, I’d lose my family. That stupid, unwritten rule made me go ahead and get baptized. The year before and after I turned 14 I went to GDL and that was around the time I started pulling away. I realized that I felt nothing at all when I saw SJF. That and other things I would notice made me doubt that anything about LLDM was real. Especially when the oldest son of un obrero a prueba raped my youngest sister. We didn’t find out till years later when my sister started going to therapy and revealed this info. My dad tried to report it up the chain of command and of course they swept it under the rug claiming they didn’t want to cast negative light on the church or that they didn’t want SJF to be sad. When my dad got deported, I started going to church less and less. I’d tell my mom I had a lot of schoolwork to do and so I’d stay while her and my siblings went to la oracion. At the end of 2011, my mom had a baby. Two days after Christmas she was born and then two days later she unfortunately passed away to SIDS. On the 31st of December, when we buried her, I told my dad how I felt for real. We lived in San Diego at the time and he was in Tijuana. He tried to pull the “you can’t be in this family” card and I called his bluff. Since he lived across the border, I realized that no matter what he would have said, there was nothing he could honestly do. So for the next year and half I stopped talking to him. My mom refused to cut me off even though she wasn’t happy that I hade made my decision. Since then, I was out. I focused on school and what my next move would be.

I remember my dad saying that 2012 was gonna be a very crucial year for the church. That lots of shit would go down on earth that would test the faith of the flock. 2012 came and went and nothing happened. Another thing added to my list of BS. I remember thinking one day before I had left that if SJF died I was 99% certain that somehow, NJG would be the one to succeed him. I was so far out of the church that I didn’t even know SJF had died. I think it was 2016 when I heard in passing from a gentile friend who knew about the church cause she was dating a guy who was also salido. I remember thinking that it was pretty convenient that once again, the mantle had stayed within the family.

I met a gentile at some point and life was good. We decided to start a family together so my focus shifted to being a provider. LLDM was far from the last thing on my mind. In 2020 just before Covid really got serious, my other sister died in a car crash to a wrong way driver. My mom didn’t tell the church anything cause my sister was half in and out. My poor mom kept wondering what became of her soul. Once again I remembered why I disliked LLDM. A year ago, we decided to leave SD and my wife and kids moved to a small town in New York. My wife is from here and her mom still lived here. We left cause everything was getting too expensive and with two kids, money was getting really tight. It’s nice not having to see a temple of LLDM anymore.

Just a few weeks ago I found out about the rapey fatf*** and everything finally clicked. It made sense why they refused to give my father justice for my sister’s rape. I know now why I could never feel anything , why the “election” was never something I felt was true in my heart. I’m glad I got out when I did. I left purely for personal reasons and it was the greatest decision I had made. It’s taken lots of steps and effort to put LLDM behind me, I’ve had to do a lot of growing as an individual. Had to learn who I was after I unlearned all the BS I was forced to learn as a child. I’ve come a long way since. My wife almost joined a cult who was young as well but got lucky that it never happened so she was actually the one who helped me realize what LLDM really was. LLDM will burn to the ground but I don’t care. My life is better and I don’t need religion to tell me how to live a good decent life.